


31 days of Whumptober

by SHADOWSQUILL



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 31 days of Whumptober, Blood, Blood and Injury, F/M, Mind Control, Nakedness, Rape, Torture, Whump, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 10:02:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 31
Words: 22,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16473455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SHADOWSQUILL/pseuds/SHADOWSQUILL





	1. STABBED

“Run!”

 

His cry echoed in the night. This was supposed to be a quiet night. He had taken her to this club Jack had recommended them. For once, the Doctor had made an effort and followed them – he remembered all too well how Rose’s nights out with Jack ended. After all, he could do with a break too. They had been running all over time and space since the Captain came on board and it was nice to have a small break to breathe. Plus, roleplays were kinda fun. This planet was a replica of the famous American Far West with all its cowboys and Native Americans that were called indigenous at that time. The cowboys look suited Jack and Rose very well. As for him, he wasn’t sure about these clothes he was wearing. He was rather uncomfortable in these pants and shirt with a blue scarf around his neck and this Stetson on his head.

However, his thoughts were more on Rose than on the way he looked. She was stunning and she seemed perfectly at ease in this saloon they had settled down in for this night in town. Their belts were full of fake munitions and fake weapons. Except for Jack obviously. He had managed to find himself a real colt and a finely wrought dagger he was proudly wearing on his side. The Doctor had given him a look of disapproval but Rose was in all awe in front of the masterpiece he had brought back. Plus, he couldn’t deny that the man did look good in this outfit. Everything seemed to suit him well, it was outraging. Not that the Doctor was having a look at his companion. He honestly preferred avoiding Jack and his constant flirting. Rose was of a much better company than the Captain. But the man could be useful at times.

Kratak – the city they currently were in – was supposed to be peaceful at this time. There always was some duels and deaths and robberies but the Doctor has checked the timelines to make sure none of this would happen tonight. It was a grey spot, but there was nothing to worry about. It was all about adventure, and this adventure was gonna cost him a lot. One of the most famous villains decided that tonight was the perfect night to attack the saloon and threaten everyone in there. Of course, the team TARDIS wasn’t gonna let that happen. They did their best, managed to save all the innocent people and ended up being three against a band of fifteen thieves. It was exciting but it quickly appeared that they couldn’t defeat them. So while Jack was creating a diversion, the Doctor had dragged Rose out… where five other thieves were waiting.

He wanted her to run back to the TARDIS while he would hold them back as long as he could. His mind wouldn’t be at peace if she wasn’t somewhere safe. But Rose’s eyes were locked on his chest and her face was pale, so pale. He looked down to see the large crimson stain on his shirt. For a second, he thought that it wasn’t his, but the fabric was ripped. His fingers touched around the hole. It was his blood. He was hurt, but the adrenaline was preventing him from feeling it. Blood was rushing through his veins. He needed to calm down or he would lose more blood. According to the stain on his shirt, he already had lost a good amount of it. His thumb brushed over the wound. Stabbed. He had been stabbed in the action and the location was dangerous. Too close to his lung. It had to be taken care of quickly. But the thieves were on them already.

 

“Rose, you gotta run.”

 

She did run, but she ran to him. They would face the danger together and she would bring him to safety. She grabbed his hand.

 

“We’ll go down together,” she declared, determined.

“What are you two still doing here?” yelled Jack.

 

The man burst out of the saloon with a weapon in each hand and started firing at the small band. Rose began running, though she hated the idea of leaving her friend in this situation. She dragged the Doctor with her and the more they were running, the more he felt weaker. The adrenaline was coming down, he was having troubles to breathe. The lung was pierced. He wouldn’t make it to the TARDIS. _‘Come on, Doctor, we’re almost there.’_ But almost was so far away. She wrapped an arm around his waist, tried to drag him. He was panting and he held on, just long enough to collapse in front of the locked TARDIS. And it was over for him.


	2. BLOODY HANDS

Rose glanced at her hands and swallowed. She had been washing them and rubbing the skin until it hurt to get rid of the blood on them. The Doctor’s blood. Something she had never thought would happen. The last few hours played again in her mind, like a song you couldn’t get rid of. She swallowed and rubbed her hands harder under the burning water. No matter what she was doing, she had the feeling of making it worse. She had been so useless there. Unable to say a word or do a thing to help her friend. She hadn’t even been able to drag his unconscious body inside. All she had done was pressed her hands on the wound hoping it would stop the blood, begging for the Doctor to hold on. She had been relieved to see Jack running back to them. He was the man of the situation. If he hadn’t been there…

_The Doctor is better now_ , she kept repeating herself. Jack had carried him inside, stolen the sonic screwdriver and fixed it on his Vortex manipulator. None of them knew how to drive the TARDIS properly and they had no time to find out how the ship was working. So Jack had used this small teleporting wristband and taken them to a friend of his who healed the Doctor. They were all back in the ship now. The Time Lord was resting in his room and Jack had gone to his. She was left alone with the memories of what had happened last night and her bloody hands. She had never seen him vulnerable before and that first time was enough for her whole life. She never wanted to see him on the edge of death ever again. If she was to lay a hand on the thief that hurt him, the guy would never see the sun again. It was a promise she was doing to herself. You should never hurt a friend of hers.

She let herself fall on her bed and closed her eyes. She tried to empty her mind, to think about something nice. She needed some rest. The alcohol was long gone from her system with the adrenaline. She was only left with the fatigue now but she doubted her sleep would ever be peaceful. She was even afraid of drifting off. She couldn’t struggle much though. She soon slipped into a light sleep her so human body needed desperately after that night.

 

_Her hands were pressed on the wound. She could feel the blood flowing through her fingers. The more she was trying to hold it in, the more it was flowing out of his body. The whistling she could hear coming from his throat along with the gurgling of blood getting in his respiratory system was causing her chest to tighten and the panic to overwhelm her._

_“No, no, no. You can’t do this to me. Come on, Doctor. You stay with me.”_

_She pressed harder on the wound with her hand while the other found his cheek. Her bloody fingers left a red mark on his pale skin. She wanted him to open his beautiful blue eyes. She would give anything to have him open his eyes._

_“Open your fucking eyes, Doctor!”_

_She usually didn’t swear but this situation as out of her control and the fear twisting her guts was making her lose all the politeness her mother had ever taught her in the nineteen years of her life. But the Doctor was unresponsive to her calls, her insults or her cries. She thought, on the moment, that she had never seen him sleep or rest at all. He was always on the move so seeing him so still was a torture for her._

_“What are you doing? Get inside!”_

_Rose raised her head. Jack was running toward them. There was no one on his heels but it didn’t mean that they weren’t following him. They had a little bit of time. And that time was enough to save the Doctor. Especially since he didn’t seem to be breathing anymore._

 

Rose woke up with a start and immediately sat up. She looked around her and tried to clear her mind. The TARDIS. She was in the TARDIS and the Doctor was okay now. It was over. Just another adventure that could have ended badly but didn’t. The only difference with their usual adventures was the Doctor’s condition, and Rose just couldn’t forget it.


	3. INSOMNIA

The Doctor groaned and got out of his bed. He had spent way too much time in here. If he had accepted to stay there was because he wasn’t feeling well enough to move out of bed. He maybe was a Time Lord but he sometimes had to stay put so his body could recover from a bad injury. He had been lucky enough not to regenerate. He didn’t know how he would have explained that to Rose. It was too soon to tell her that he could cheat on death and change his face. They were having fun together. It would annoy him a lot to have it changed because some stupid thief had decided to try and kill him. Just the thought of it was hurting. He pulled off his jumper and put it aside. He was gonna take a shower to get rid of the soreness. It would also give him the feeling of having done something of his day. He hated the procrastination.

He dragged his body to the bathroom, got rid of the rest of his clothes and stepped into the shower booth. The water was already flowing. The TARDIS was taking care of him the best she could. One thing she wasn’t doing was keeping him updated on his companions. Jack was coming here from time to time but the Doctor had made it clear that he wanted to be left alone to recover. He wouldn’t have refused a visit from Rose though but Jack must have transferred the message and she hadn’t come. Or she had when he was having one or two minutes of sleep before a nightmare wake him up. She hadn’t left anything to signal her presence so he couldn’t know. He was worried for her. He remembered all too well the expression of fear on her face when she had seen he was wounded, her voice as she tried to bring him back to the TARDIS. The last few days must have been hard on her.

The Doctor headed for the kitchen. He was gonna have one hell of a meal. He was done eating the thing supposed to be chicken soup that Jack was bringing him. He hadn’t refused the food because he couldn’t bring himself to starve. He needed to eat for his body to recover. Besides, the Captain was making his best to help him. He couldn’t blame him for that. Speaking of the devil, the Doctor found him sat at the kitchen table, alone. He was drinking a cup of tea and reading a newspaper he had gotten from Kratak. Obviously, things had calmed down outside or Jack wouldn’t have had that newspaper in hand. The Doctor didn’t ask the question. He just scanned the room and was surprised to see that Jack was alone. No sign of Rose anywhere. Where had she gone? Was she sleeping? Humans needed an awful lot of sleep.

 

“Hey there,” greeted Jack with his American accent. “Feeling better today?”

“Sort of. Where’s Rose?”

 

It was just a micro-expression. Something so tiny that no normal being would notice it. But the Doctor was no normal being. He had said it enough: he was a Time Lord and his species was superior to the others in many ways. He didn’t like that cult of superiority his species used to have, but it was obvious on many levels that Time Lords were in advance on other species. That was why he noticed Jack’s tiny expression. That was why he felt his guts knot in his belly. The Captain was reticent to answer him and that was gonna infuriate him really quickly.

 

“Tell me,” he insisted sharply.

“It’s better if I show you.”

 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow but followed the Captain anyway. His anxiety was climbing with each sore step he was taking. He had thought they would find Rose in her room but instead, Jack was leading him to a room the Doctor knew enough to really not like what was coming. The Zero Room. A sort of confinement cell. Only used in extreme emergency.

 

“She hasn’t slept in three days. I’ve rarely seen someone reacting so violently. I had to lock her in there to protect her, and us.”

 

The Doctor had to force the Captain to unlock the door so he could get inside. He wouldn’t leave Rose alone in this room. He had to go inside and find out why she wasn’t sleeping. He was surprised beyond words by the mess he found in the room. Rose had drawn all over the white padded walls and ground. There also were sheets of paper scattered around her. Everything was showing the same thing: him laying in a huge puddle of blood. His friend was sat in the middle of the room, her knees against her chest, and she was rocking herself back and forth. He could see by the way she looked that she indeed hadn’t slept in a while. She was going through an unstable row of emotions. Jack had told him she was reacting violently. This phase seemed to be done. It had led to another phase more worrying: depression and self-harming. And it had all happened so quickly because of him…


	4. "NO STOP!"

_It had been a beautiful dream_ , Rose thought to herself. It had looked much more like a nightmare to dream that this man with blue eyes, the Doctor she was calling him in that dream, was being stabbed and about to die but, in the end, it had gone well for him. Dreams had that ability to almost always end well when reality was just a bunch or ordeals you had to overcome or die. She didn’t know who this guy had been, nor where she could have seen him and even less why she was considering him as her lifesaver but those were questions that didn’t need answers. It had been a dream and like every dream, she had to forget it and face this new day with all the courage she had in herself. Except it was getting harder and harder to face every brand new day lately and this dream she had had, she kinda wished it was true because it would mean she had gotten away from her personal hell.

She often wondered how she could have ended in this situation. She used to be a young girl full of life with lots of friends, a girl who didn’t hesitate in fighting back if you were messing with her. She missed this girl today. If she had the chance to, she would go back in time and tell her younger self not to go on that path that seemed so attracting. She had gone on that road and now she regretted it. She regretted it every hour of every day and she was seriously thinking about ending it all, one way or another. Whatever option it was, she knew she wouldn’t have the courage to. It was just how she had become. The proud strong girl who wasn’t afraid of kicking asses and doing reckless things had grown into a young woman lacking of self-confidence afraid of the world and of the people around her. All because of one person.

James ‘Jimmy’ Stone was all smile and success and she had fallen quickly for him. He had known how to coax her until she was just a puppet in his strings. There wasn’t anything she could do against him now. It had been slow and progressive and she hadn’t seen it coming. First, it had been small remarks on the way she was acting, on the way she was dressing and she had changed all of that just to please him. Then, it had been her friends that weren’t for his liking so she had let them all down for him. She only needed him to be happy, and he was deserting for other girls. She was going to her mother’s when it was happening and he hated it so he forced her to sever all contact with the only family she had in the world. It had been hard but she loved him. She loved him more and more every day and it was her fault if he was angry at her for some reason.

Today though, Rose Tyler was done with Jimmy Stone’s bullshit. She was done being locked at home and wondering when he would come back, when he would allow her to eat and drink water or even have access to the bathroom. Today, her exhaustion had reached its climax and she couldn’t handle anything anymore. It had to stop. The psychological oppression he was doing on her had made her the person she was now and enough was enough. So she gathered all her courage, broke the ties of her wrists and left the miserable flat. It was easy, too easy, and she began running halfway through the first staircase just in case Jimmy would be hiding somewhere as a way to trick her and find another way to treat her even worse than he was already doing. But there was no Jimmy hidden in the shadows.

She had done it, she had reached the door of the building, the door that would free her from her poor existence when he appeared in front of her. The surprise on his face as they met on this so strategic point only lasted for one second. The rage quickly replaced it and Rose didn’t have the time to react that he shoved her against the closest wall, yelling insanities. She wasn’t listening to him. Not anymore, but she didn’t fight back when his hand stroked her cheek only to slap it the second later. She didn’t fight back when he threw her to the ground, when his hand closed around her throat, when he straddled her. Humiliating her, reducing her to nothing, insulting her, assaulting her wasn’t enough anymore. He needed to hit harder so she wouldn’t have the idea of running away ever again. He was gonna take the only thing he hadn’t taken from her yet: her virginity.

 

“No, stop!” she begged.

 

This time, there was no insult, no strangling, no order that could have stopped her from fighting back but Jimmy Stone was strong, stronger than her, and nothing that she was doing would work. He was getting what he wanted and she cried and screamed and begged but no one was coming to help her. All hopes left her and she stopped fighting to accept her fate, to lose herself under the thumps of this man she had once loved…


	5. POISONED

“You’re back where you belonged,” Jimmy spat.

 

When he had been done with giving her the punishment she deserved – in his opinion – he had dragged her broken body back to the flat and had thrown her into the bedroom. She had stopped crying a while ago and her eyes were swollen and painful. Her legs were sore and she could feel blood running on her skin. He had stolen her virginity. He had raped her and broken her. This time, she wasn’t gonna recover. This time, she was giving up. He could have all of her. He already had taken all she had to give. He could crush the pieces of her that were left. She wouldn’t fight back. Not anymore. But he did nothing of that sort. Raping her had been enough for the moment. He would come back later to finish what he had started and she would be there, waiting for the moment it would be done.

Jimmy slammed the door behind him and all her body seemed to release the tension she had amassed over the last few weeks. She collapsed on the ground in a heap of flesh and ripped fabric and hugged herself as if it was gonna take her pain away. That small moment of peace didn’t last as the door was opened again. She was prepared for the worst when Jimmy forced her up and took her to the kitchen. His hand was gripping her arm so tight that she was sure she would have bruises really quickly, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

 

“I’m hungry,” he barked. “Make me something.”

 

She didn’t ask him what he wanted. She made the food with the little there was in their cupboards and fridge. There was just enough for him alone. She wouldn’t eat again that day. But once again, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t observing her as she was cooking. She could add anything and he wouldn’t notice it until it was too late, and she did. That box of fizzy aspirin that had been lying around here for months was added to the recipe along with a bit of rat poison they needed not to be invaded by those creatures. She hid the taste of it with spices.

 

“You don’t really want to do that, do you?”

 

She turned around. This voice wasn’t Jimmy’s and yet it was him speaking. This bass voice with a pronounced accent, she had only heard it in her dreams. It was the voice of the man with the leather jacket, the alien travelling in a blue box. She was most likely hallucinating. Her body and mind were so miserable that she wouldn’t be surprised to imagine things. She put the plate down before her boyfriend and sat down on her chair, her eyes down. She wasn’t allowed to look at him while he was eating.

 

“It doesn’t look much like you.”

 

The voice was judging her this time. He was here with them in tiny kitchen and he was watching her every move. Being judged by a hallucination was the least of her problems at the moment, but she couldn’t ignore his comments.

 

“Shut up!” she yelled at the man in leather jacket.

 

The slap that followed came from Jimmy of course. He couldn’t see the other man and he was thinking she was speaking to him. He didn’t need to decide that it was a good reason to punish her again. He shoved her again the counter and her only reflex when her back painfully bumped on the hard surface of the furniture was to grab the knife covered with the poisoned food and to stab him in the stomach.

 

“Rose…”

 

This wasn’t Jimmy’s voice. This wasn’t Jimmy either. The man she had just stabbed was the one she kept dreaming of. It was his blood flowing on her hands. Her hands holding the knife stuck in his stomach. Her friend she was killing again.


	6. BETRAYED

Her trust had been abused so many times that the Doctor couldn’t get mad at Rose for punching his sore stomach. Thankfully, she didn’t have any poisoned blade by hand but in her mind, it was real. The shock of her fist caught him off guard and he was forced to leave her mind. She had quite a strong punch when she wanted and he guessed it was because of her story. It was the first time he was seeing this Jimmy guy. Rose had never talked about him but the Doctor knew by her attitude that something serious had happened to her before he met her. He had had no idea of what it was until today. This guy was lucky not to be alive anymore or the Doctor would have found him and make him pay for hurting someone as precious as Rose. But at the moment, there was nothing more important than to help the blonde woman to get back to reality.

The lack of sleep could have severe consequences on a human being and Rose, who was constantly pushing the limits of her exhaustion to keep up with him, should have taken advantage of those few days he was off duty to sleep as much as possible. So why had she been awake for three days? Why had she refused to sleep? Was the hallucination she was stuck in the consequence of her insomnia or the cause? He had been in her mind and seen the dysfunctions of her brain. She wouldn’t be able to recover if she wasn’t sleeping and she wouldn’t sleep without a little help. With what he had seen, he knew she wouldn’t take any sleeping pills. She would be too afraid that it might be poison, afraid that her boyfriend would try to get revenge on her again. And the Doctor only wanted to help her.

He had no other choice but to influence her mind and force her to sleep. As much he hated that. He had always promised that he wouldn’t use his Time Lord tricks on her, especially if it meant forcing her to do something. However, her health and life were on the line and he couldn’t waste any time to try and convince her that she should really sleep. He raised a hand and softly cupped her cheek. His cold touch seemed to get her out of her hallucination. She slapped his hand away from her and glared at him with her bloody amber eyes.

 

“You’ve come into my mind,” she blamed him.

“You were having an irrational fit.”

“You said you never would!”

“I was trying to help you.”

“Getting in my mind is no help to me! You’ve promised, Doctor! You’ve promised that day I’ve gotten mad at you for not telling me that the TARDIS was getting in my head! You said you would never get into my head!”

“Rose, this is not…”

 

She slapped him to make him shut up. This was the only way to make him shut his fucking mouth, to stop him from babbling and getting what he wanted. She knew it because her mother did it once and it had worked. He would be offended and would complain about it or get angry but she didn’t care. She was done being ill-treated by those men who thought they were better than her.

She felt betrayed to say the least. She had thought he was her friend and he was using his tricks against her. Was he responsible for her current exhaustion? Had he forced her to stay awake and to relive all her past? She slapped him hard again. His eyes were full of apologies and worries but she knew he was faking it all. The Doctor was the greatest actor she had ever met. He could fake any emotion. She wouldn’t believe him. She wouldn’t listen to him. She jumped on her feet and ran to the door… only to find it locked. The TARDIS was keeping her in there. She had no ally. Everyone was against her.


	7. KIDNAPPED

Jack hadn’t come into the Zero Room with the Doctor. He had thought it would be better if the Doctor was alone with Rose. He had taken care of them both for the last three days and he deserved a little break. Plus, if someone could force Rose to sleep, it was the Doctor. She was in good hands with hands and Jack didn’t doubt that she would be better by the time he would come back. So he decided to go for a walk in town. Kratak was a lot quieter since the last time he had gone out. The thieves had been arrested and everyone was living again. The attempt of robbery that had ended so badly for the three travellers was long forgotten for the people here. Jack wished he had that chance but, just like Rose, he was having troubles forgetting how weak his friend had been when he had joined them in front of the TARDIS and how close to death he had been.

The Time Lord was much better now but it would be great if he could still rest instead of running into another adventure. All superior alien that he was, he needed to stay put for a few more days. His wound was fully healed – oh Jack envied this ability to heal so fast! – but this had been an almost lethal one and even if it was just a scar now, there could be unexpected consequences. With the Doctor, Jack had learnt to always expect the unexpected. Nothing was going according to the plan they could have had in the first place. There were always troubles, always running, always deaths. This time, it had nearly been the Doctor’s death they would have had to mourn and, in all honestly, Jack didn’t know how he would have managed to save Rose from the grief such a loss would cause her. He would be very affected, but it would be worse for her.

They could say all they wanted, Jack wasn’t blind, nor dumb. The two of them were clearly in love with each other. The Doctor had told him to _‘keep his hands off the blonde’_ and that she was _‘off limits’_. His behaviour toward her was also very clear. He was jealous every time someone was flirting with her, every time a pretty boy – as he was always saying – was coming near her. Rose was even less subtle than him with her feelings. If you were watching them closely enough, you would see how she was looking at him, how his hand was always the first she was reaching for, how she was teasing him and also how she was always looking for his support and approval, even when she was doing the exact contrary of what he had just said. Jack couldn’t blame them. After all, how could you not fall in love with the brave blonde woman and the mysterious moody Doctor?

On board, he was the only one to flirt with them and to try to have a chance – even for a single night. The Doctor was always refusing but there was something in his eyes that told Jack that he wasn’t as straight as he pretended to be. Rose was flirting with him but for her, it was just a game. There was nothing serious in the way she acted with him. She was doing it mostly to make the Doctor jealous and she was doing it well. Sometimes, Jack wondered how she was as a teenager. Well, a couple year back since she was only nineteen. Her mother must have been crazy with all the boys she was getting attention from. And now she was running all over the worlds with an alien and a man from the 51st century. Jack had never met Jackie Tyler but from what he had heard, she was terrific. But every terrific being could be tamed with a smile.

That was his purpose tonight. Jack was gonna find himself a nice cowboy or a beautiful cowgirl to spend the night with. To do things right, he settled on a stool in the very same saloon he had escaped from days ago and ordered a drink. He observed the people around him. There were some nice specimens. The choice was large and it was perfect. Maybe some would be up for a threesome.

 

“You’re still here.”

 

Jack looked up at the tall brown-haired woman who put her hand on his shoulder. He flashed her a bright smile. She smiled back at him. For once, he wasn’t the one making the first step. He liked that when they dared being the first to flirt with him.

 

“Yep. Needed more time to see what this town has to offer to me.”

“That’s a good thing,” she murmured in his ear.

 

She sucked on his lobe and slowly moved away from him. She made her way out of the saloon and he followed her with a bright smile on his face. Finally, he was gonna have fun. Well, that was what he thought until someone hit the back of his head and knocked him out…


	8. FEVER

They had been in this room for hours. The TARDIS wasn’t letting them out and Jack seemed to be away or the TARDIS was keeping him away. Whatever it was, the situation was what it was: Rose had had a go at him and she was now sat at the other side of the room to be as far from him as she could. She refused to speak with him. So the Doctor had sat down close to the door, his back on the wall, and he was waiting. Waiting for her to change her mind or to collapse from exhaustion. Waiting to be able to do something for her. However, the woman was stubborn and she wasn’t giving in to the fatigue. She was just glaring at him from her spot. He hated being like this. There was a time where he would have gone through all the promises and laws just to keep his companion safe. But with Rose, everything was different because she meant more to him than anyone else had ever meant in his long life.

That was why he was being so patient at the moment. Three hours, ten minutes and thirty-six seconds. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. His grasp on time was making the wait longer than it really was. He probably didn’t look any better than her at the moment. To be honest, with every minute passing, he could feel something being really wrong with him. Maybe had he left bed a bit too early. If he had to be honest, he wouldn’t be able to move right now. His body felt sore. He was moving his arms and legs occasionally, folding and unfolding his fingers. It wasn’t like the regeneration process, much more painful. It was more like… dying. It was the same as when he was lying in the dust bleeding to death. His wound was being painful again. He rubbed the area. His respiratory system felt blocked and it was a bad sign.

Whatever doctor Jack had taken him to, the man had never had surgery on Time Lords. Which wasn’t surprising since the species didn’t exist anymore. It also meant that his wound hadn’t been healed the right way. He hadn’t thought about it when he had woken up, but now his system was back to normal and it was detecting all the wrong things in his body. He rubbed his chest and took deep breaths. He quickly analysed his condition. Sore body, paralysed limbs, troubles to breathe, loss of his grasp on time and on reality, two more degrees to his corporal temperature. He was having a fever. There was an infection somewhere in his body. He moved slightly and lost his bearings when a sudden dizziness overwhelmed him. He collapsed on his side with a groan. He wasn’t gonna make it if he stayed here. He had to go to the med bay as soon as possible.

He crawled to the door. It was only centimetres away from him but it felt like it was galaxies away. He was silently exhorting himself to force himself up. Time Lords weren’t crawling. Time Lords weren’t vulnerable. Time Lords weren’t getting damn fevers. He had to be different from them on that point too obviously. No wonder why they didn’t like him on Gallifrey. They must hate him more now that he had exterminated them all. Pulmonary deficiency. Four lungs and none of them working. Whistling breathing. _What the hell?_

 

“Doctor?”

 

Rose was wondering what he was doing. She was probably thinking that he was faking it all so she would worry for him again and have her come near him. He wasn’t. He gave up on the idea of going out of this room. He didn’t have the strength to. He needed help. Where was Jack when you needed him? Palms on the ground, he tried to prop himself up. His arms were trembling under the effort he was making. Slowly. One move after another. Focusing on what he was doing was making it easier to move. But his efforts were ruined by a sudden shiver. His wobbly arms gave in and he was gonna meet the ground but someone caught him before he broke his nose.

 

“Damn, you’re never that hot usually!”

 

Rose had finally understood that he wasn’t faking anything. He couldn’t fake a fever. He couldn’t fake how he was feeling. She helped him up – was he that weak or was she very strong? The TARDIS would have to let them out so he could get the cares he needed at the moment. A fever was anything serious, unless there was a bigger issue behind it…


	9. STRANDED

_Stranded_. That was the first word that came to Jack’s mind when he reached the TARDIS’ location only to find the ship gone. He was puzzled, mad and sad all at once. How could they have abandoned here after all he had done for them? He couldn’t have been gone for so long. No one could kidnap the Captain Jack Harkness and expect to keep him in chains for more than a couple hours. Not even a pretty woman. They had thought they were smart. They had played on his weakness for pretty beings to attract him outside this saloon. They must have observed him all along the small stay him and his friends had done here, a stay longer than expected because of this failed robbery. But Jack hadn’t given them the time to tell him what they wanted. He had done his usual act and managed to have the upper hand and run away without hurting anyone.

He had lost a little bit of time to retrieve his vortex manipulator. He couldn’t lave that to anyone. This technology was too precious to be left in unexperimented hands. Once it was back around his wrist, he had run away from this abandoned prison and straight to the TARDIS. He stood there, where the blue police should have been. He didn’t know what to do know. He could go back to Earth or wherever he wanted with his vortex manipulator but the fact that his friends had left him behind was breaking his heart. All Jack Harkness that he was, he had gotten attached to these people who saved his arse a couple months ago. They were the first real friends he had made in a while, the first to care for him – even if the Doctor was pretending the contrary – and it was hard to think that it had all been a lie.

Coming from the Doctor, he almost wasn’t surprised but coming from Rose… The blonde had been the one to convince the Doctor to save him and to keep him on board. They were getting along very well so why would she chance her mind now? The Captain looked at his vortex manipulator and started setting his next destination. He couldn’t stay here with the threat above his head. He cursed. The vortex manipulator was crypted. The Doctor had blocked it again. He had made sure Jack wouldn’t be able to follow them wherever they would go. He really was stranded in this hostile town that wanted him for an unknown reason. He let himself fall on the sandy ground. It had been his biggest fear since he stepped in the TARDIS. He had always feared that one day he wouldn’t be enough for the two travellers and that they would abandon him on the side of the road.

This fear had finally come to life and the Captain felt internally destroyed. The two only people he trusted with his life, the two only people he was loyal to, were also the ones who broke the last pieces left of him. But they still could crush those pieces with one last thing: a message left in his wrist device. Trembling, he pressed play and a hologram of the Doctor appeared and the cruel smile on his face just didn’t feel like him but it was him. The Doctor. The man who had changed his life.

 

“Dear old Captain, you’ve thought it would last forever, innit?” began the hologram. “I told you to stay put and to keep your hands off Rose. But you’re just a bunch of troubles, aren’t you? You can’t help yourself throwing us into these life or death situations. I’ll tell you what, Captain. This is the last time it ever happens. You must have figured it out now, don’t you? Rose and I are gone, and we’re leaving you here. I’ve crypted your wrist device again so you wouldn’t have the bad idea of coming to ruin back our lives. Enjoy your stay in Kratak. I’ve heard the Glorious days are coming soon.”

 

It was all. There was nothing else. Jack had to listen to the message once again to be sure he had understood it. A detail made the terror rise in him. The Doctor had spoken about the Glorious days. The Captain knew enough of History to know what it meant. The Glorious days were the bloodiest days in Kratak’s History. There would be a revolution and every inhabitant of this town would fight with another in search of a power that was buried under their feet. They would never find it as there would be no survivor. The Doctor had left him in a town that was gonna become a ghost town and there was nothing Jack could do to flee from this situation…


	10. BRUISES

“You were right, Kr’ktra. This guy is the perfect specimen.”

 

The two accomplices were looking at the Captain sat still on the ground of the prison cell they had thrown him into hours ago. It had been so easy to drag him out and to get their hands on this stranger. He obviously had never been told not to trust a beautiful woman, especially if that one was showing interest in him. It was good for them. He hadn’t been as obedient with Drogtor as he had been with Kr’ktra. The foul had even tried to fight. No wonder why his naked body was covered in bruises and bloody cuts now.

 

“We’ve been warned that strangers were coming. The female was of no interest though the test of the robbery showed us a hidden potential inside her.”

“What kind?”

“Still unknown. Just the other guy. There’s something about them. Less malleable than this one.”

“What do we do of him now?”

“Erase his mind. Set him up for the next step.”

 

Drogtor nodded as Kr’ktra left the cell. She was gonna find her next preys. One single soldier could hit a town hard but it wouldn’t be enough. They needed more people like the Captain to prepare their revolution. Drogtor pulled out the tablet controlling the small device he had implanted in Jack’s neck. This was this device that was controlling his mind and making him believe any scenario he was immersed into.

 

Jack abandoned the idea of the Doctor and Rose coming back for him after a couple hours. No one had come for him, whether it was ally or enemy. He was alone in this, and to complete it all, he was naked. When had this happened? He didn’t remember taking off his clothes, nor losing them for some reason. He needed to get some others back on? If the day was particularly hot on this planet, the nights were freezing cold and that’s not how he wanted to die. After tasting the heroic life with the Doctor, he preferred dying for a right cause. Sometimes, he missed his life as a coward. At least, he wasn’t suffering from heartbreak, wasn’t taking any risk and he would have his pockets full of money from cons. The Doctor and Rose showed him a better way to live his life and now, he was gonna have to go back to the old way to survive.

The thought of the Doctor and Rose created a wave of rage inside him and he clenched his fists in answer to this new anger. He shouldn’t feel bad to have been abandoned. He shouldn’t feel furious. Depression wasn’t helping you to survive, but a great fury along with a goal were keeping you from giving in to the first troubles. So, Captain Jack Harkness held on to the anger in his heart to keep on walking through the desert surrounding Kratak. He had forgotten that the TARDIS was parked so far from the town. There was no one and nothing around there. He only had a couple hours left before the sun came down.

 

“I swear any entity living entity out there that if our paths ever cross again Doctor, I’ll make you pay for this. Time Lord or not, you’re gonna suffer as much as I did.”

 

However, for now, he had to survive through this hostile desert. He kept falling as his body was starting to suffer from the warmth of the sun burning his skin and the lack of water and large bruises were starting to grow everywhere on him. The last fall was a nasty one but it also brought him to a good old cactus. Cactuses were full of water he really that. With his bare hands, he managed dig a small hole in the desert tree and he pressed his mouth on it to get some of the water. The first drops in hours. They made him lots of good, gave him new strengths to keep going as the sun was declining. He needed to find a shelter for the night, but where would he find something so important for his survival in a never-ending desert?


	11. HYPOTHERMIA

_I haven’t made it in time_ , the thought to himself as the lights of town finally showed up to his side. How long had he been walking already? He couldn’t even remember the last time he had stopped to steal a bit of water from a cactus. His body was trembling irrepressibly but he couldn’t feel the cold of the night biting his skin. Honestly, he couldn’t tell if it was a good or a bad thing. He just knew he had to keep on walking if he wanted to stay alive. The town was close and yet so far. But he could do it, he had to do it. He was stumbling and tripping more and more but he wouldn’t give up. The pain, the wind, it reminded him that he was alive. Every time he was falling and hurting his knees, it gave him a new impulse to keep going. Each step was a torture but he was forcing himself to continue. But the lights were so far away.

Despite his brain screaming him not to stop now, he had a break. He needed to catch his breath. He put a knee down on the sandy ground. The grains stinging his naked skin would help him to stay awake. How long were the nights on this planet? It was like it was never ending. He rubbed his dry eyes. He noticed that his hands weren’t trembling anymore. His body was used to the cold. He closed his eyes a few seconds. He was so tired now. This small break was showing him how far he had gone beyond his limits. The will of survival could make you do incredible things but it unfortunately wasn’t enough in his case. He blinked and his heart sank in his chest. The lights were gone. He jumped to his feet, his legs wobbling under his weight, and looked around him, desperate. The town were just there a few seconds ago. Where had they gone?

A sudden impulse made him run like crazy in the direction of the now turned off lights. If they were there a couple minutes ago, they should still be somewhere. So he ran faster and faster until his legs gave way and made him brutally fall in the dust. He let out a cry of despair. Every chance was taken away from him. He couldn’t survive in this condition. He couldn’t even move anymore.

 

“On your feet, Harkness.”

 

A Northern accent and a moody intonation. The Doctor. A glimpse of hope burst in his chest. Had he been mistaken? Was the Doctor back for him? He raised his head from the sand and his eyes met a pair of black boots.

 

“Doctor?”

“Who else do you think would go back in this town to find you?”

“I thought you were gone forever.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“I’m sorry. I know you only take the best.”

“Harkness! You better not fall asleep! You are too close to give up!”

 

He was gonna apologise again but the Doctor was gone. It had been a hallucination, just a simple hallucination that had given him hope too much hope. In vain. His friends hadn’t come back for him. He was gonna die here. And yet, the lights were back and he was so close. He propped himself up, pushed on his arms and legs but his body just didn’t have the strength to move anymore.

 

“Don’t worry. We’ll bring you back home.”

 

The Doctor again. He wasn’t gone. He was still there. The Doctor shouldn’t be carrying heavy stuff, Jack knew it, but at this point, he couldn’t refuse any help. The Time Lord wrapped him in something warm – was it his jacket? – and lifted him in his arms. He wasn’t gonna complain about being saved this time. Especially since it was by a man he used to admire.


	12. ELECTROCUTION

“Damn it!” cursed Rose. “Aren’t you gonna help me?”

 

She hated yelling at the TARDIS because the ship didn’t have anything to do with her current situation but she had had hope that she would help her in this situation. After all, it was her driver that was in a worrying condition. If she wasn’t helping, Rose wouldn’t be able to do anything. The Doctor was speaking non-sense since they had managed to left the Zero Room. Dragging the Time Lord to the med bay hadn’t been easy since he was taller and heavier than her and couldn’t stand on his feet alone. Getting him on a bed had been even harder. He kept moving in his delirium and trying to find a position for him to breathe easier wasn’t in her competences. It was like him being stabbed all over again, except the wound was healed and the scar… Well, the scar had a nice blue colour that was spreading on his whole side like a web of venules. It couldn’t be good.

 

“You gotta help me or he’s gonna die!”

 

Rose glanced at the screens displaying information about the Time Lord’s current situation. It was in a language she didn’t understand. The Doctor’s language. It looked beautiful, all in circles and geometric arrangement but it was useless to her since the TARDIS wasn’t translating it. She turned to the Doctor. He was lying on his side, his breathing still very noisy – and she knew from the shows she was watching that it wasn’t a good sign – and she had no clue of what to do to help him. She came to him and forced him to look at him.

 

“I need your help, Doctor. This is your ship, your world, your language. I can’t heal you if you’re not helping.”

 

For all answer, the Doctor started speaking in this language the TARDIS wasn’t translating. It was beautiful. It almost was like a song. A song she was convinced she had heard once in her life. Something, deep inside her, was thinking it was the song of Time but she pushed the thought away. It was too stupid. Giving up on the idea of getting any sort of help, Rose rummaged through the cupboards to find something to make the fever come down. If it wasn’t the Time Lord’s way, it would her way. A beeping sound drew her attention back on the computer. The TARDIS was showing her the process for… a pulmonary puncture?

 

“I know you are very clever but I can’t do that. Even with a tutorial.”

 

Nevertheless, if she wasn’t doing it, her friend would die and she wasn’t ready to see that happen again. She read the whole tutorial, found the stuff she needed and took a deep breath. She got rid of his jumper the best she could. Then, she counted the ribs – Time Lords seemed to have a lot more than humans! – and with another deep breath, she ripped the wrapping of the syringe and pierced the Doctor’s skin where the TARDIS was showing her. The Time Lord tensed but she forced him to stay still as she began draining the purulent fluid blocking his breathing. She didn’t know if she should feel relieved to have succeeded in doing such a thing or worried to see this murky fluid coming out of the Doctor’s body. Relieved seemed to be a better option as he was now breathing much better, but his skin was still very hot.

 

“I’m done. What should I do now?”

 

Taking off the needle and putting it aside. Applying a compress on the hurt location and fixing it with plaster. She ran to a huge machine, grabbed a couple test tubes and filled them with the drained fluid. She added them in the machine and tried to start but it refused to work. It was unplugged. She let out a curse word and fell on her knees to plug it in. She didn’t see the warning on the cable before she plugged the machine in and once she did, it was too late. It happened very quickly: the tingling in her hand which muscles contracted around the cable it was holding, the burn on her skin, the sudden need for air and the pain in her chest… And then, it was all black.


	13. "STAY"

The TARDIS had let her in without any difficulties despite the possibility of danger there could be for the timelines and for Time itself. She smiled at the sight of the console room and restrained herself from going to the console and stroking it. She couldn’t lose any time here. Her boots were making a soft noise on the grating. She headed for the med bay quickly. That was where her help was needed at the moment. The ship led her steps. She could have rejected her but instead, she was embracing her as if she had always been there, as if she belonged there. Which was the truth. Saying she knew every corner of the infinite ship would be a lie because no one could know all the corners of her, but she knew her well enough. There was a long story between them. However, this story hadn’t prepared her for what she was seeing in the med bay.

The Doctor was resting on his side on a bed, shirtless, ignoring what had happened behind him. She left him in his delirium for the moment. His life wasn’t on the line. Rose’s was if no one was helping her. The TARDIS had made sure to cut off the power – unfortunately too late – so getting close to the young woman wasn’t a problem. She checked for a pulse. Fast but clear. It hadn’t reached the heart. It had been close enough though considering the streaks on her arm and the burns on her hand. The muscles were tensed. Her eyelids slowly fluttered opened.

 

“Doctor?”

 

Her voice was weak and uncertain. She must have a blurry sight. It wasn’t surprising considering the shock she was reeling. She cupped her cheek softly.

 

“You’ve been lucky, love.”

 

The accent was the same as her friend lying on the bed. If it could convince her that she was him, it would be perfect. No need to mess with the timelines and better not mess with her memories, for their own sake. But Rose frowned. It was so unusual of the Doctor to call her love. He had never called her that way.

 

“Don’t you worry. ‘m here to help.”

 

She helped her up and gently forced her to lie down on the second bed on the room. She stole the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver and scanned her. She read the results and was satisfied to see that the little damages there were could be easily fixed. It even didn’t take her long though she was taking her time. Rose had been a friend for a very long time, friends that had parted way and never seen each other again after a tragic adventure. But the Doctor and Rose didn’t know about that. It hadn’t happened to them yet.

 

“You’ve changed, but you’re him.”

 

It wasn’t a question. She had deduced it on her own by the way she was acting with her and by the fact the TARDIS had let her in. The stranger didn’t answer. She was afraid of saying something that could have consequences on the future.

 

“You’ll be fine.”

 

She glanced at the Time Lord’s bare back. The compress already had a stain of blood. Rose had done a really good job with what she was given. She walked to the machine, picked a test tube and scanned it with the sonic. She made a face at first but it could be fixed.

 

“I’m gonna leave you some instructions to take care of him. Don’t give him aspirin. Time Lords are allergic to that thing.”

“Doctor?”

“Hm?” she betrayed herself.

“Please, stay.”

 

It wasn’t that she didn’t want, but she couldn’t. The little time she had spent here was already too much. She was scared of the consequences it could have. And yet, she did stay. After all, Rose couldn’t take care of her big bad Time Lord alone…


	14. TORTURE

_‘None of this is real,’_ he repeated to himself. _‘I’ve been abducted by some barmy alien and they are torturing me. They’re in my mind, they’re using my memories and fears and doubts against me.’_ He had been saying all of this to himself for hours now. He had understood when he had opened his eyes and seen his surroundings that all that he had gone through before was just a hallucination of his mind. It had felt so real that he had had to check if it wasn’t a sort of virtual reality he was stuck in and he had found the responsible for this under the skin of his neck. A small almost imperceptible bump. They were using this thing to have all control on him. The Doctor and Rose hadn’t abandoned him. They didn’t even know he was missing or they would have come for him. Or were they thinking that he was having fun like he was supposed to do?

He needed to get the hell out of here before his torturer came back to hurt him more. Jack Harkness was no man to let himself be tortured. The foul hadn’t tied him down and he was gonna regret it later. Jack gathered his strengths and forced himself on his feet, his hand gripping the irregular rocky wall to keep steady. Virtual realities weren’t dangerous if they were used for games like the ones of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries, but when you were using the version from two centuries later… If you were dying in the game, you were dying in real life. What had been the point of pushing the Captain’s body and mind so far with such scripts was a mystery and he wouldn’t stay there long enough to find out the answer. He found his clothes and vortex manipulator a bit further – obviously they weren’t master in the art of keeping someone prisoner.

He got dressed quickly. His dagger was still there too. Great. He needed to be sure that this wasn’t another simulation created by the thing in his neck. It wasn’t gonna be pretty, nor easy, but he had to do it. He palpated his neck until he felt the small bump. Then, he used the dagger and made a notch in the skin, grimacing at the feeling. He slipped two fingers in the incision and looked for what had to be a small sphere, barely bigger than a pea. The thing was connected to his nerves, no wonder why it was working so well. He had no regret tearing it off his body even if it was a real torture to have all those nerves reacting to the pain. Jack put the sphere in his pocket. He would give it to the Doctor and see what he could do about that. He tucked the dagger in his belt and headed outside of his prison. Finally.

The sun burnt his eyes and blinded him for a few seconds. He squinted a bit until he could see better. This place was out of town and there was no one around. It seemed weird to him to be able to move so freely, to have no one running after him but he wasn’t gonna complain. He was in no condition to fight. The faster he was reaching the TARDIS, the better it would be. Good thing it wasn’t parkedvery far from this abandoned prison – though he didn’t remember seeing the ruins of a building where they had previously landed. The bad thing was that the TARDIS wasn’t letting him in.

 

“Come on, old girl. That’s me. Your good friend, Jack. You can let me in.”

 

He maybe was unrecognisable with those clothes and bruises and blood on him but it still was him. She should feel his mental signature. Unless they had changed it with their weird experiments on his mind. Thankfully, the ship finally recognised him and opened the door.

 

“Thank you. You are the best.”

 

His hand slighted stroked the wood as he pushed the door and stepped in. A feeling of novelty struck him. The TARDIS was way darker than he used to remember. Everything around him was completely different from the TARDIS he had stepped out hours ago. It couldn’t be the real TARDIS. It was another simulation. That was why it had been so easy to leave the prison and get there. They were playing with his mind again. Beaten by this new revelation, he fell to his knees. He had enough of this torture. He couldn’t handle it anymore…


	15. MANHANDLING

They dragged his body on the sandy ground adding more scratches to his already burnt and bruised skin that wasn’t protected by his clothes. He didn’t react. He was done with the fighting. It wasn’t worth it anymore. They had him. They had his mind. They could make him do whatever they wanted because he couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore. He didn’t remember this from the History books he had read, didn’t remember Kratak having this technology. He only remembered the Glorious days and how bloody they were gonna be. What had triggered those days, he couldn’t remember. There must be a reason though. Something serious that had pushed so many different people from around the galaxy to gather in this precise point of the universe to put an end to this planet? He had every information in hand but couldn’t quite see the link between them.

His body was thrown into a hole in the sand and abandoned there to rot in the sun. He wasn’t dead and they knew it but the next step wasn’t up to them. They had another accomplice, someone that would manhandle him worse than they had already done. He could feel it coming and he knew exactly what the devil’s face would be. It was the same face every time. He didn’t know what was worse: being tortured physically and mentally or having it being done by a familiar face, by a friend. He was coming back. He could hear his steps on the sand. He wasn’t running for once. He was just walking. They were knowing him so badly. He was no man to walk. He preferred running, running into adventure, and torturing people certainly wasn’t in his personality despite the back story he was suffering from.

 

“They’re using you again, then.”

“Yep.”

“So, what’s up for today?”

“Let’s have a drink, ‘kay?”

 

The Doctor held a hand out to him and helped him up. This definitely wasn’t like him to offer a drink but Jack wasn’t gonna complain. He grabbed the hand and followed the Doctor in town. They went into that saloon again. This place seemed to the central piece of their plans. They were barely in that a woman came to them. She ogled him up and down.

 

“Is that the friend you’ve talked about?”

“Yep.”

 

The woman took them upstairs, where the rooms of the prostitutes were. She pushed him inside and the Doctor closed the door behind them. He locked it and leant on it. Jack was more focused on the woman. This reality could please him a lot. His eyes were literally devouring her as she undressed. She gave him a naughty smile and grabbed him by the shirt to pull him closer.

 

“I like it brutal. Do you?” she murmured.

“Oh, we can do what you want, love.”

 

When she pushed him purposely on the bed, he understood that it wasn’t what he had expected. He wouldn’t have refused some brutal love but this wasn’t love and this certainly wasn’t pleasant. This was like wrestling without the fun, a one-sided match where he could only be manhandled and do nothing because his body wasn’t responding. He could only be a victim of this whole reality and he was paralysed. And the Doctor was laughing, and laughing, and laughing again…


	16. BEDRIDDEN

“What should we do of him?”

“I don’t know. How’s he gotten in?”

“The Doctor would help him.”

“Well, she’s not here and he is.”

“Do you think… She said last time she was some Scotsman guy before changing…”

“I don’t think so. Anyway, he’s here, he’s in a bad way. We can’t refuse to help him.”

“Is he even alive?”

“I am.”

 

His voice sounded weak to his own ears. Speaking was hard. His throat felt like sandpaper and he couldn’t ignore the stabbing pain somewhere around his neck. The rest of his body was rather numb compared to this part. He couldn’t feel a thing from shoulders to toe. It was like being with that woman all over again.

 

“That’s how you want me, right? Alive and hopeless, ready to everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Alright, I’m being beyond confused again.”

 

The Captain opened his eyes to see this new simulation they had thrown him in. He was back in that weird TARDIS again. He was lying on his back and there were three people standing around him. Three confused people. Two young adults and an older man. He held a hand out to them and flashed them a beguiling smile. Even in this situation, he was being loyal to his self.

 

“Hello,” he started. “I’m Captain Jack Harkness. What are your names?”

“Stop it, Captain. We already had this talk.”

 

Everyone looked at the TARDIS’ doors where the Doctor was standing. It was Jack’s turn to be confused. He had never seen this woman in his life and she had a very strange sense of fashion. Where the hell was the Doctor? And did he know her? She seemed to know him pretty well.

 

“I can’t remember it.”

“It was in another lifetime. You look miserable, Captain.”

“And you’re the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I must be in heaven.”

“You’re very well alive and safe. I’ve caught your distress signal and come to your rescue. Saved myself in the process.”

 

She didn’t give more details but helped him back to the right TARDIS, ordering her companions to stay inside her own. Jack was properly confused at the situation but he followed the move. She took him to the med bay where they found a bedridden Doctor apparently soundly asleep with Rose by his side. From the look on her face, she hadn’t had any sleep while he was missing. She raised an eyebrow at his condition.

 

“It would be very long to explain,” he replied.

 

The blonde with the blue and grey trench coat forced him to lie down on the bed Rose was previously using and took care of him with the technology present on board. She wasn’t making any mistake or looking for stuff. It was as if she knew exactly where everything was. Who was she? And where had she found another TARDIS? The others had spoken about the Doctor but there couldn’t be two Doctors in the same room at the same time. It was against the laws of Time. Plus, they didn’t have the same face. _‘There once was a species called the Time Lords.’_ His old History lessons were coming back to them. _‘They were in charge of Time and Space, watching over it and making sure nothing and no one was disturbing their course. They were powerful, and weren’t choosing sides. They weren’t interfering in other planets’ matters. Some people were calling them ‘The Keepers of Time from Gallifrey’. Then, Time had gotten rid of its keepers forever through a war against the most evil creatures and worst enemies of the Time Lord: the Daleks. No tricks like cheating death worked to save them for the filthiest war we have ever seen._

 _No tricks like cheating death._ The Doctor could cheat death. He could regenerate and change. He remembered that now and that was his last conscious thoughts before the female Doctor sent him to sleep. Just like his friend, he would need a couple days to get better. Until then, he was bedridden. Not a bad thing. He was home, finally.


	17. DRUGGED

“I’ve told you not to lick that thing!”

“Not my fault if I’ve inherited this habit from you!”

“I don’t _lick_ stuff to know what it is!”

“Oh, must have been another self then.”

“Doesn’t matter. We gotta find your TARDIS and go back to Rose before…”

 

The ninth let out a groan as his future self collapsed against him. It shouldn’t have gone this way. They weren’t even supposed to be together. However, that previous situation they had faced with him out of order and Jack missing had forced his own self to come to the rescue. It was a risk to take and that risk had caused this whole situation to happen. While they were both supposed to go on their own paths and scramble the memories of this meeting, their TARDISes decided that the story of them wasn’t over and that they had to live another life-threatening adventure. They had crashed in this sort of jungle and obviously both of them had decided to go and see outside living their own companions in the ship for their sake. Knowing how Rose and Jack, the ninth doubted that they would even do what he had ordered.

The two Doctors had walked through the jungle and hadn’t met anyone. They hadn’t met any sort of animals either. They had been sonicking the surroundings to get more information but it seemed like this planet, whatever it was, wasn’t known from anyone yet. It was their chance, crashing on an unknown planet with no one around. _‘At least, we’re not on Desolation_ ’ she had joked. As if it meant something to him. Probably a planet he had visited in a future life. By the name of it, it wasn’t a trip he had chosen. Or she. The atmosphere here was heavy and humid. A tropical atmosphere. They soon had needed water and that’s very close to that watering hole that they found these strange blue leaves. She had grinned happily, saying she knew this plant and that it was full of sugar, and he had told her not to lick it since the surroundings weren’t very friendly. In vain.

And now, he had to yomp through the jungle, half carrying her, because these leaves weren’t the ones she thought but a very strong natural drug, that obviously were working on Time Lords. What a chance. He wondered what had happened to him to become so careless about things and how he could be so energetic. Running, he could do that, but bouncing around happily… How would he even be in the state of mind to do such a thing? Had he finally been forgiven over time? Or had he forgotten?

 

“Having a nice trip, aren’t you?”

 

It appeared to be a nice trip though with the smile on her face, her sparkling eyes and how relaxed her body felt in his arms. Usually Time Lords could communicate through minds but she had her mind heavily locked so he couldn’t have access to it. Which was a good initiative since he couldn’t know about his own future. He had already guessed by her new companions that she wasn’t traveling with Rose anymore and the look on her face when she was looking at the bright pink and yellow girl was clear: she was gone forever in his future timeline. Even if he had always known it would happen, this hit him hard and he had to stop for a moment to pull himself back together. Now wasn’t the time for dwelling on things that hadn’t happened yet. And she started to scream. That future female self began screaming at the top of her lungs – and for a Time Lady, it was something! – and fighting him. This was no longer a nice trip.

 

“What the bloody hell?!”

“Step back! Step away from me!”

 

She firmly pushed him away and he had a hard time keeping on his feet because of the jumble of roots and leaves and branches he was previously walking on. Her look on him was burning with rage but also fear. Whatever it was, this drug was making her hallucinate. She pointed the sonic at him. Maybe she would see that he was an old friend and not an enemy.

 

“You’re hiding behind an old face of mine but I’m not blind. Show yourself.”

 

The ninth was gonna retort something but he was stopped by a noise. A branch cracking under a foot. Someone was coming. It could only be Rose or Jack or the three others she was travelling with. A little help would be welcomed… But it wasn’t help and they were surrounded.


	18. HOSTAGE

It definitely wasn’t his week. After being nearly killed, he was now being a hostage of a tribe of natives. None of the sonic screwdrivers hadn’t detected their presence. Actually, they hadn’t detected anything from this planet. It was as if everything was just new, as if everything had just appeared here for them all of a sudden and no data had been collected yet. They were gonna be part of the History of this planet as the first victims of barbarian people. If his future self was dying, the consequences would be less serious than if he died. If he was to lose his life, it would change his future. Who knew what he had done in the future, what good would be undone because of one simple death? For him who had always looked for danger and death, he knew that it wasn’t possible anymore. Not as long as he could see his future.

They both had their hands tied to a thick branch two natives were carrying. He had been relieved of his leather jacket and they had taken her ridiculously long and coloured coat depriving them from their sonic screwdrivers. The natives probably thought they were armed. Which he never was. If there was one thing to know about the Doctor, it was that he was always unarmed. He loathed guns and he hoped that hadn’t changed in his next lives. He could hear her struggling behind him. She was still under the effects of the drug she had so stupidly licked. She was tripping over the roots and forced to keep walking with the help of a lance in her lower back. She was annoyed. He was more. It was her fault if they were in this bloody situation.

 

_‘You’re not gonna make anything better by screaming at them.’_

_‘Won’t get any better by doing nothing!’_

 

The advantages of being Time Lords – Time Lady in her case – was that they could have a talk through telepathy. He would be lying if he wasn’t thinking that it was a relief on his shoulders to have that connection with another Time Lord. He had missed it and the silence in his head had been driving him crazy. What he hadn’t expected was the free kick in the ass he got from her.

 

“Oi!”

 

He stopped suddenly and tried to turn around to face her and show her the wrath of a past self that was just out of war but he quickly had to stop messing around when the tip of a lance was applied against his throat. Whatever the native said to him, he couldn’t understand it. It didn’t look very nice though.

 

_‘Remember that if something happens to me, it changes our future.’_

 

He didn’t get any answer, physical or telepathic, as they were led into a small village. The air smelt like burning flesh. Human flesh. It wasn’t a good sign. They probably had been on a hunting ground and been taken as preys. They were on the menu for tonight’s dinner. Bur first, there was a bit of a preparation. A cruel preparation or they would have been killed from the start. Or was there another option?

They were thrown into a deep pit with their hands still tied. They would wait here until their gaolers decided what they would do of them. They didn’t know what fait awaited them. But the Doctor was no man to stay in a trap. He was gonna get out of here before someone decided to taste a Time Lord flesh. He wasn’t gonna wait in this pit until forever. He glanced at his future self. She was suddenly really pale and didn’t look well.

 

“We need to get out of here. _Ex tempo_.”

“I do agree with that.”

“The drug’s wearing off and I’m not having a good reaction to it.”

“What?”

“Catch me.”

 

Before he could understand, she collapsed again. They better find what that drug was and add it in the TARDIS’ system so no one would ever have the bad idea to lick it ever again. The ninth’s escape plans were pretty ruined now. How could he climb up that pit with a collapsed Time Lady on his back, face a bunch of armed natives and get back to the TARDIS in time?


	19. EXHAUSTION

“You should get some sleep while the Doctor is gone, Rosie,” suggested Jack.

 

They were in the console room waiting for the Doctor to return. Rose was slouched on the pilot seat. Over the last few hours, he had seen her lose her strengths and that energy that was making Rose who she was. The electroshock she had suffered from had kept her awake for a moment because of the pain and shock it had provoked. It had added more fatigue on her already very deprived of sleep body. Now that there wasn’t any risk anymore, she should get some sleep but she was still refusing for some reason and Jack knew that a human couldn’t survive very long without sleep. She shook her head.

 

“No.”

“Rose, you can’t continue like this.”

“I said no!” she barked.

 

A wise man would have stopped here before she got angry and had a go at me. Last time Rose had gone mad he had had to lock her up. He didn’t want to do that again, but he needed to put some senses into her head and forced her to sleep. She had pushed her body beyond exhaustion and she soon was gonna have more serious symptoms than wandering around the TARDIS and attacking everyone around her.

 

“He said he wouldn’t be long. They are two Doctors. I trust them both.”

 

The Captain leant on the console and folded his arms on his chest with a grimace. The Doctor had sutured the incision in his neck, mumbling on the fact it had been done by a butcher. Jack hadn’t dared telling him yet that he had done this to himself to get rid of the small sphere he still had in his pocket. He was observing it when he was alone. And he had had the time to when he was bedridden. He was having nightmares about Kratak now and was afraid that his situation was another simulation. He was reassuring with the fact they couldn’t have created another Doctor from his memories since he hadn’t known there was another Doctor around at the time. He was holding on to that thought.

 

“You know, it’s not gonna help him to worry about you because you’re unwell.”

“I can’t sleep, Jack.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“Is this because of what has happened in Kratak?”

 

 _Touché_. She turned her head away and he could see her nibbling on her bottom lip. She was only doing this when she was nervous. Right now, she was far away from a simple nervous condition. She was even beyond anxiety. She was getting paranoid and absent to herself. And it could be dangerous.

 

“I have nightmares too,” he admitted.

 

He didn’t give nay details about his nightmares. Rose’s were about losing the Doctor, about having his life flowing out of his body while she was trying to save him. His were about what they had done to him, about the doubts they had awoken in him. Rose wasn’t listening anyway. She was staring off again but something was wrong.

 

“Rose?”

 

Still no reaction. This was going too far. He would find sleeping pills or anything that would force her to sleep and tuck her in bed because it couldn’t continue. Her body and mind had reached their limits and when she finally passed out, Jack was too slow to catch her before she fell on the grating…


	20. CONCUSSION

Blaming himself for being too slow to catch her before her head hit the grating, Jack had been quick to take her back to the med bay. She had a bleeding cut on her left temple. The shock hadn’t been that violent but sometimes it was enough to create a concussion. If she had one, he wouldn’t be able to see it unless she woke up and showed signs of it. Until now, he was in the dark. He cleaned the cut with a disinfectant and applied a band aid to stop the blood. That’s all he could do at the moment unfortunately. But Rose opened her eyes rather quickly. She looked confused and tried to get up but he put a form hand on her chest to force her to stay down.

 

“Stay down, Rosie. It’s okay. I’m taking care of you. How are you feeling?”

“Where are we?” she murmured weakly.

“In the med bay. You’ve fallen and hit your head.”

“I never knew there was a med bay in the TARDIS.”

 

Jack frowned at this statement. With the time they all had spent in there in the last few days, it was surprising that she didn’t remember the room. Was it an amnesia? Amnesia was on the list of symptoms of a concussion. He had to check if she did have any other. He made her follow his fingers. No problem here.

 

“Do you feel any dizzy? Nauseous?”

 

She nodded. He had been afraid that she would. The concussion was clear now. There was nothing he could do against it but have her rest to recover.

 

“’m tired. And I have this headache too.”

“You have a concussion. I can’t do much. You have to rest.”

“Where’s the Doctor?”

“We had a problem with the TARDIS. We were forced to land on a planet he didn’t know. He’s gone to explore it.”

“Alone?”

“No. He’s got a friend with him. He’ll be alright, I promise.”

 

Jack softly stroked her forehead, being very careful not to hurt her. He hated seeing her so pale, so vulnerable with those dark rings under her eyes. He gently tucked her in the bed. At least, she wasn’t protesting. Well, not yet.

 

“I wanna see him.”

“I’ll tell him to come soon as he’ll be there. Can you sleep a little? For me?”

 

To his relief, she nodded again. She was giving in to the exhaustion and the concussion. For a long time, people had thought that you shouldn’t sleep when you had a head injury but the scientists had proven that resting completely was a better and faster way to recover. He dropped a soft kiss on her forehead. He wouldn’t have been able to answer all of her questions and was glad she was finally getting some sleep. He was gonna watch over her until she woke up. Or until the Doctor was back. This second option would be better. She would be more reassured to have him around her than the Captain.


	21. HARSH CLIMATE

The Doctor was beginning to suffer from the strange climate this planet had. He had been right in the tropical climate. Heat and humidity. And now, a thunderstorm so powerful that the ground was trembling around them. Rocks and leaves and twigs were falling on them. The thirteenth was still out but he could see that she was suffering of the same symptoms he was. Hot flush, disturbed breathing, nausea, headache. He could feel her symptoms through the bond all Time Lords shared. They were usually bearing quite well every climate thanks to their biology that made them able to control their temperature and adapt it. It was a blessing sometimes and it would have been really great if they could adapt to this climate. It wasn’t very unusual. So why were they having such troubles to adapt?

Something crashed down on his head. A drop. They were in an open-air pit and it was gonna rain soon. It smelt like rain, but the atmosphere was strange. He could hear the natives running and orders being yelled. It wasn’t announcing anything good. If the natives were showing so much fear, there was a reason and he wasn’t sure to like it. Another drop hit his hand. A drop of blood. He touched his face, looked for a cut, checked his future self. They weren’t hurt. He looked around him. The sky had a frightening crimson colour. The colour of blood. The earth was sweating. He pressed her hand on the wall and took it off. It was covered with that same crimson colour. Blood. The earth was absorbing blood instead of water. It wasn’t raining water, it was raining blood. And if it was a storm, they were gonna drown in this hell.

He either had to get out of here and find a shelter or build that shelter before this climate killed them both. He checked the wall. Roots and rocks could be used as supports to climb the wall. He tested them. They seemed solid enough to bear his weight. But could they bear his weight plus his future self’s? He wouldn’t know it if he wasn’t trying.

 

“This is new to me so I hope you won’t put the blame on me if it goes wrong.”

 

He used his jumper and her braces to stabilise her on his back. It wasn’t very safe but he hadn’t much of a choice at the moment. Then, he started climbing. Slowly but surely. More and more drops were falling but it was bearable for now. His feet were slipping and rocks were leaving their spot in the wall causing him to have less supports to climb but he managed to reach the top of the pit. He put his jumper back on. The village was desert. There was no one anymore around. He found his jacket and pulled back on before wrapping the blonde Doctor in her coat. He lifted her hand on his back. It was gonna be hard to find his way back in this jungle with such a harsh climate but he had to do it. He was halfway through the mess of this jungle when the rainstorm fell on them. A warm and suffocating rain. He could only hide under a high tree with branches and leaves so thick that they were temporarily protecting them.

 

“Why are you stopping now?” murmured the thirteenth.

 

The ninth put her down that tree and leant on it for a moment. He hadn’t realised that she was awake. He was panting and she didn’t look any better.

 

“Blood rain. Not easy to see a thing through it.”

“We have to get to our TARDISes.”

“I know.”

“We won’t get there in time if we’re having a break.”

“I do know that!”

 

She forced herself back on her feet. She wasn’t very stable but she had to walk to go back to their TARDISes, she would. She stumbled and immediately, he was there, his arm around her waist. They teamed up and made their way through the jungle and the rain, only to collapse on the TARDIS’ doors, beaten by this climate…


	22. FRIENDLY FIRE

The ninth managed to get back up on his feet and to drag his thirteenth self inside her TARDIS. As much as he loved his companions, they were currently too damaged to be a serious help. He hoped that her companions were prepared for any sort of emergency because that’s exactly what it was. An emergency. The ship wasn’t very happy to have two Time Lords soaked with blood rain dirtying her interior but she couldn’t let them outside with such a storm. The three companions waiting in her console room were by their sudden entrance and their appearance. They didn’t dare saying a thing as he glanced up at them and cursed.

 

“It’s gonna be a cure of master cleanse for her and tea for me. Strong the tea. Don’t ask questions, not yet.”

 

On those words, he abandoned his sitting position and held a hand out to the thirteenth. She grabbed it tight and he pulled her up. She hadn’t said a word yet.

 

“What has happened?”

“What have I said, Graham?”

“We’re heading to the shower,” intervened Thirteen. “We’ll talk about that later, but do as he say. This version of me was rather grumpy.”

“Oi!”

 

She tapped his shoulder and gave a reassuring smile to her companions before heading to her personal bathroom. The ninth entered the first one that showed up. The TARDIS already had a pile of clothes waiting for him. Good girl. Rubbing every single stain of blood of their body and hair wasn’t easy but they managed to do it after a long while.

 

“Oh, you’ve cleaned my jacket!” he exclaimed when he found his leather jacket totally clean next to his clothes.

 

It didn’t take him long to put it all back on and to walk to the kitchen. The strong smell of tea was filling the atmosphere barely bothered by the smell of the master cleanse he had asked for his other self. The three companions were there, obviously waiting for their answers. He took a sip of tea. It was perfect.

 

“Blood rain.”

“What?”

“Very harsh climate,” added Thirteen. “Heat and rain. Not water rain, blood rain. Native cannibals. This planet’s new and very, very hostile.”

 

No further explanations came as an alarm rang through the ship. Thirteen drank that master cleanse in one go and ran to the console room followed by Nine. Both of them were on the scanner at the same time. The TARDIS was detecting a threatening presence. They were surrounded and the natives weren’t about to leave. Two groups of them there were. Two groups that didn’t get along according to the images they could see. The two Doctors glanced at each other. They had to stop this before a war happened. It was their duty. They ran out of the TARDIS and stood in the middle of the battlefield joined by Jack but their intervention actually made things worse as the native teamed up against them. They could only run back in their own TARDIS and watch as they attacked the ship. Unfortunately for them, the ship had strong shields and their weapons were sent back at them.

The Doctors and their companions could only watch the slaughter through their screens. It was another battle lost for them to watch these people be killed by friendly fire to defend themselves against the invaders they were in their eyes. Nine chose to leave first. The TARDIS seemed ready to leave this hostile planet. Why had they landed there? To witness another slaughter? As if the Doctor hadn’t had enough of the too many ones he had caused in the past…


	23. SELF-SACRIFICE

The Doctor certainly knew how to self-sacrifice when his friends’ life where on the line. After all, he had less risks than them to die for real. He would regenerate and change his face and that was all. He was even more willing to sacrifice for Rose if the situation needed him to. But Rose was well protected at the moment. She was in the med bay. She hadn’t woken up yet since Jack had asked her to sleep. She was getting all the sleep she needed and he was glad for that. He would spend every hour of the day sitting by her side because Jack had told him she wanted him there when she would wake up. So he was patiently waiting. He had made sure that the TARDIS was on Earth in a quiet time so they wouldn’t be bothered anymore. Jack was wandering around the town to get them what they needed.

They were all plagued with nightmares and it turned out – not surprisingly – that the Doctor’s were the worst since he couldn’t make a clear distinction between the reality and his dreams. He only had to close his eyes for a brief moment to be sent into the most improbable situations. At first, he thought they were all be different but every time, he was brought to the same decision that was eating him up: whether to save Jack or Rose’s life. And every time, he was unable to take any decision. Jack would tell him to pick Rose and Rose would order him to pick Jack. He would save Rose at all costs and they all knew that but her name was stuck in his throat and he realised he couldn’t speak anymore. Then, he had to watch them die in the most awful ways a living being could invent.

It could end up there. It could be just a simple nightmare and he would wake up and decide to stop sleeping for a while – he could do that, only needed an hour of sleep per week, him – but it would be too simple. Jack and Rose were dead and he was thrown into another situation where he had to live this all over again. This was simply exhausting. Sometimes, he wondered if he was in a regenerative coma and was visiting his deepest doubts and fears but the war and the choice he had had to made that day never showed up. Was he more afraid of losing Rose and Jack than to destroy his whole planet and race? What he most feared though was to lose someone else. Losing his people – by his own hand – had been hard enough on him so losing the two persons that were keeping him on the right track.

Another nightmare was over and a new one began. He was standing in the middle of an arena, dressed an ordinary referee in a football match. All around him it was terraces full of people laughing and screaming and having fun and he was confused until the lions came in. A Roman arena. Most likely the Colosseum. He was a bloody referee for their games. There hadn’t been any referee in the Ancient Rome, but there were gladiators and they were fighting to death with weapons that didn’t belong to this century. Men and women and lions were throwing themselves in the fray where they could only meet death, blood and pain. He couldn’t let this happen again. History had proven how cruel these games had been and they had been forbidden. Only a man and a woman were standing now and the Emperor turned down his thumb. Death combat.

The Doctor wasn’t surprised by this decision and his anxiety climbed up when he realised those two fighters were Jack and Rose, fighting for their lives once again, and since he still couldn’t take a decision, they would have to kill each other. He couldn’t let that happen. Not again. He had to bloody save them even if that meant he was gonna take their place in the end. He used his whistle and everyone in the crowd held back their breathing as he stood between the two fighters.

 

“You don’t have to do this, Doctor.”

“You are much more important than the both of us.”

“The world can keep turning without us without us, but not without you.”

“No.”

 

It was a simple word and yet, he felt so relieved to be able to speak again. It was as if he had been allowed to just because he had intervened, just because he was saving his two friends and sacrificing himself instead.

 

“Have my life instead of theirs. I’m worth the two of them. I’m the biggest sinner you’ll ever meet. Erase all my people and my whole planet from existence, me.”

 

All around him froze. His decision was taking and the script was changing. It would be the one taking the blows and his companions would be safe. That’s the least he could do for them after they had saved him from himself…


	24. DROWNING

He was still in the arena but he was alone now. Alone to face a crowd wanting him dead. He could only expect the bloodiest most cruel death coming from these people but they seemed to have plans for him. Soldiers filled the arena. He didn’t fight them, didn’t try to run away from them. For once, he surrendered to them. He let them escort him to his fate. He had expected literally everything but what they had prepared for him. He was brought under the arena and locked into a room. He was told to undress.

 

“What for?”

“Undress. Now.”

“No, I won’t undress until you’ve told me what’s the point of all of this.”

“You will obey or we will have your friends killed.”

 

To prove their point, a video of Rose and Jack being held captive was shown to him. They seemed fine but a soldier was aiming a gun at them and threatening them to shoot them if he wasn’t doing what he was asked to do. It was almost an ordinary situation and Jack would always come up with an idea to get them out of it but not this time. This time, they were terrified and he didn’t know why.

 

“Okay, fine! I’ll do! Just don’t hurt them, alright?”

 

He obeyed, like a coward, because he knew deep down that it was the best thing to do. He took off his clothes chose to keep his boxers on though. He had no problem with being naked but a man should keep his dignity when he could. But these guys weren’t joking around with him. They wanted to take everything from him.

 

“Take off all of your clothes.”

 

He shrugged lightly, pulled off the final piece of clothes he had on and added it on the pile. Then, he spread his arms and turned on himself to show them that he didn’t have any hidden weapon or piece of fabric left on him. He walked on the black cross drawn on the ground and closed his eyes. It was the orders he was given. And suddenly, the ground beneath his feet was taken away and he fell into a dark hole. Next thing he knew, he was drowning. How had he gotten underwater, he couldn’t tell. He remembered the black hole but he was sure to have never landed anywhere. It was as if the script had been changed why he was falling, as if that fall had only been a trick to keep the audience waiting until they found what to do of him. They hadn’t expected him to sacrifice himself for his friends and the fact he was a Time Lord wasn’t making him any easy to kill.

However, there were rules and when someone was choosing to die in the arena, they couldn’t go against their decision. Especially since the crowd was expecting something spectacular from this contestant that hadn’t been worth anything so far. So they had thrown him in the biggest aquarium they had by hand. An aquarium full of the most dangerous aquatic species that could be found. To add to the danger of the situation, they had created whirlpools in the water. Every fighting living was trying to avoid them and fighting these creatures was out of the questions. He had never been a good swimmer, him. Never had the time to learn how to swim, nor to go to the pool or beach for fun. He just knew how to survive in an aquatic environment, and it wasn’t enough to survive such a trial.

He had quickly been caught in one of those whirlpools. He was struggling to come out of it, to reach the surface before he came out of air. He could hold his breath for a long moment but he needed it at some point. And he was reaching that point. Limbs felt like concrete as he was trying to move them as fast as possible. It wasn’t enough. A shark thrice his size caught stuck with him. The animal was struggling as hard as he was but the movement of water threw him against the Time Lord. The shock of such a collision expelled all the air from his chest and caused him to open his mouth. He had been ejected from the whirlpool. It didn’t change much for him. His body was refusing to move, he was sinking to the bottom. Something bit his leg. The creatures were attacking him and he knew now. He knew it was over.


	25. RESTRAINTS

They had been forced to cancel the games and take him out of the aquarium before he actually died in it. This had been too easy and there wasn’t any fun to watch someone half dead being eaten by predators. They had to find something else for the audience to have fun with him. But for now, he needed some fixing. They had taken him back to the preparation room and tied him down to the metallic table. The restraints were mostly around his wrists and ankles but they also had added one around his neck just in case. The Doctor was known to be clever and to escape every desperate situation in the most unexpected ways. That was what they had wanted from him in that arena. He had given them the total opposite and it was disappointing them as much as it was infuriating the audience. They needed to strike harder.

The Time Lord was still out and twenty technicians were working on him. They had pumped the water in his lungs, stitched and cauterised his wounds. They were concerned by the fact he wasn’t waking up but his vital signs were good and his brain was working. He was reacting to the stimulus. He just refused to wake up. It was easier to work on him at least. Now that he was all bandaged and cleaned, they could fix his physical appearance. They had noticed that the audience was more interested in his companions’ looks when in his. The only thing that shone in him was his incredible intelligence. So they were fixing it. It wasn’t hard to change someone’s appearance. It was harder to make them accept it. Everything was a question of money in this world and their contestants had t fit the standards.

Out the big sticking out ears, out the weird shaped nose, out the wrinkles of his forehead and around his eyes, out the mole on his cheek. They were modelling him like the perfect man everyone was dreaming of. They added a bit of weight, increased the muscle mass. He was already much better. They tightened the restraints. Once he would have seen what they had done of him, he would react badly and they didn’t want him to run away. They were fixing the wrinkle between his eyes when he woke up. His reaction was the exact one they had expected from him. He struggled against the restraints that were to tight around his wrists and ankles and neck that they were stopping the blood circulation in his veins and the air from reaching his lungs. Why had they saved him from the aquarium if it was to kill him later in their lab?

It wasn’t the weirdest thing though. Everything in him felt strange. That’s it, strange. As if he was a stranger to himself. They had changed something. They had changed him. Why the hell would they change him? It wasn’t in the contract! There was no contract but he had sacrificed his life, not his appearance!

 

“What’ve you’ve done?”

 

His voice was muffled from the lack of hair he was suffering from and his face hurt when he was speaking. The rest of his body did hurt too – that was to expect when you were being the meal for aquatic predators – but they were fixing it and doing some improvements. Improvements he had never asked for!

 

“You shouldn’t speak yet, Doctor. We’re not done with you.”

“I don’t care!”

“You gave us your life and we’re making it ours. You belong to us and we can do what we please with you.”

“Like kill me?”

“This is not in our plans yet.”

 

The Doctor snorted. If it wasn’t in their plans, why had they thrown him in the water them? Why were they sending him in the arena? He didn’t have the time to ask those precious questions as someone was injecting him something. The fluid was cold in his veins and whatever it was, it was acting quick because he already felt the effects on his brain. They were drugging him for him to go back in the dark. It was probably to send him back in another scenario or something.


	26. BROKEN RIBS

They were trying to make him a fighter. After changing his appearance, they were training him to become a killer. He had taken the title ‘Doctor’ and chosen to never be cruel or cowardly. For the coward part, it was a failure. He had run away from Gallifrey and its war, run from the genocide he was responsible for, run from his guilt and pain. But never had he been cruel. He refused to be. That was against all his codes. He wasn’t using any weapon during the trainings. He never hurt any of the adversaries they gave him. He was simply knocking them out simply and quickly. The other gladiators were leaving bloody bodies in their wake, he didn’t. They were mocking him when they were taken back to the cells where they were living when they weren’t training. He was ignoring them and thinking about the best way to run away from here.

Since he didn’t need to sleep, he was spending his nights to put a plan together and to observe his potential adversaries. He was noting their strengths and weaknesses just in case he would have to face them in the arena or simply during the trainings. However, this habit of his was seriously annoying the others who considered it unfair to have an adversary so intelligent who barely slept and still was able to knock everyone out. As the organisers of this game didn’t care about the claims they were getting, they all decided to go against the Time Lord and break him like a twig. On his own, he had no chance to win against them all. But that was their plans of course. Hurting him so badly he would have to be sent back to the preparation so they could fix him. While he would be there, they would be safe. As safe as this place could be for them.

They got their revenge on him at the very moment he let his guard down to get a few minutes of precious sleep. Just a few minutes and it was enough for them. He couldn’t defend himself. He only took the blows, even when he heard his bones crack under their hits. They were beating him hard enough for him to regenerate but he would fight the regeneration. He preferred dying here than showing them another ability of his. The organisers weren’t gonna let them destroy their best asset though. They came in the cage with electric truncheons and used them to calm the rebels down. The Doctor tried to sit up but his body protested. Most of his ribs were broken but none of his organs seemed to be touched. He was having a bit of luck for once. Two gaolers picked him up while the others were keeping the prisoners away.

He was brought back to the preparation as expected. The journey was full of groans of pain as they dragged him there. He was good for another couple of sessions of fixing him or improving him whatever they would call it. For him, it was just another session of torture and abuses. He wouldn’t handle it anymore. He had a plan. He had just made it. And this plan was to run away right now. His chances were under five percent but he had to take a shot. If he didn’t, he would be stuck in there. Despite the pain, he fought the two gaolers. They were using all his current weaknesses against him but he had this desperate will to get out from here and that was what was motivating him at the moment. He fought until he could see the precise moment they would let him go and when it happened, he ran as fast as he could.

 

“Oi! Stop him!”

“Alert! The prisoner’s escaping!”

“Lock all the exits!”

 

Each step was sending a sting of pain in his chest because of his broken ribs but he didn’t dare stopping now to look behind him. They would lock down the building for him not to escape from them. He just needed to find a hidden spot and stay there until they stopped looking for him. That was the plan for now. He avoided every soldier he was meeting in the corridor. There was an open bulkhead right in front of him. It was slowly closing but he could get under it in times. There were yells in his back and a detonation. Something hit his back and the sudden pain took his breath away. He lost his balance and used all his run-up to slide under the bulkhead before it was closed. There, he stayed down on the ground trying to breathe, trying to ignore the pain slowly killing him inside. There was a certain feeling of safety in this room and that was perfect…


	27. "I CAN'T WALK"

The Doctor was panting and each rise and fall of his chest was like a stab in his body. His broken ribs needed an urgent fixing before it caused a perforation of an organ that would lead to a possible major failure of his system. Not the sort of things he could go through at the moment. He had to get out of here and find his TARDIS, his companions. Once he would have found them, he would be safe and it would be over. The nightmare would finally be over. He had never thought that he would live something as traumatic as the war, that he would be so afraid of losing someone that wasn’t even part of his people. Losing the other Time Lords had been a thing, losing the companions that had brought him back to life would be another one. It would destroy him completely if he had to lose them. But here he was without them, in this life-threatening situation.

His general senses but also his senses of time were confused and he couldn’t determine how long he had been there, where he was and who was around him. His vigilance was down and it was bad for him. If they were coming, he wouldn’t hear them. They would catch him and they would punish him for running away. Unless he had punished himself by locking himself inside this room. His hearts were beating a samba against his broken ribcage and his blood was rushing in his veins. All his nerves were highly strung and everything was sending messages of pain through his whole system. He had to shut it all off for a certain moment. There were better places than a cold hard ground but he couldn’t move anymore so he didn’t have any other choice. He took small breaths to reach a perfect calm he needed to initiate the shutting off of his system.

It took a little while to reach the perfect calm his body required. All his senses were still not working and it didn’t matter anymore. His eyelids were slowly closing. His system was reduced to the minimum until his full body recovered from these terrible days.

 

“Jack, I think they’ve dropped another one here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I could hear him breathing.”

 

Jack and Rose came out from the piles of carboards they had hidden behind the whole time the alert was blasting through the speakers. As spared fighters, they were allowed to go in almost all the building. Obviously, they were nosing around to find the Doctor, looking as innocentt as they could – which, in Jack’s case, was quite hard. But so far, there was no clue of where he was. Probably in a restricted area. It was frustrating.

 

“Yeah, that’s a new one. Never seen him before. But,” he pushed the unconscious body with his feet, “he’s in pretty bad shape. I don’t think they threw him in there.”

“What? He ran away?”

“Wouldn’t you give it a try?”

“Isn’t it what we’re trying to do?”

 

Jack gave her a smile. They couldn’t recognise the Doctor with the change they had made him go through. They were thinking he was some stranger who had the bad idea of trying to gain his freedom back. But he wasn’t. He was their friend. Their Doctor. The one they were looking for.

 

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’ve failed you.”

 

Rose and Jack froze. They would have recognised this voice anywhere, but the face wasn’t the same. They shook him. They needed to force him to wake up so they could all run away from here. They needed to know why he was wearing this too perfect face full of bruises and cuts. His eyelids fluttered open slowly.

 

“Doc? We’re taking you out of here.”

“I can’t walk.”

 

His voice was weak and his eyes were shut again. If speaking was requiring so many efforts from him, he indeed wouldn’t be able to walk. Jack would carry him. But first, they would have to wait until they stopped looking for him…


	28. SEVERE ILLNESS

When he opened his eyes again, he was laid on a hospital bed. It wasn’t his TARDIS. Everything around him felt very human. Himself felt human and that was confusing. He turned his head to glance at the monitoring by his side. One heart. He only had one heart. In a very bad condition if he believed the data written on this screen. He passed a hand on his side. No broken ribs. He touched his face. His ears, his nose, his wrinkles… Everything was back to normal. Except he was human and in a hospital bed. If it had been the chameleon arch, he wouldn’t remember the TARDIS and his alien nature. He only used this if there was a threat he needed to stay hidden from. Since Kraktak, he hadn’t met such a threat. Not that he could remember at least. However, there were more urgent questions: what was he doing here? And how had he become human?

He passed his hand again on his side, counting the ribs. Twelve in his side. A normal ribcage. A _human_ ribcage. One heart, in a very lame condition. No Time senses and normal hearing and sight – pretty bad sight – and touching. This felt so weird and so unpleasant. He needed to get out of here. But he was stopped before he could move. Someone had opened the door and dropped something like a cup of coffee. He turned his head in this direction and was dumbstruck. Rose was standing in the doorway, a hand on her mouth, tears falling down her cheeks, a spilled cup of coffee at her feet.

 

“Never knew I was having this effect on you,” he croaked.

 

She didn’t say a word. She slowly made her way to him. There was something strange about her. She wasn’t being her usual self. But he wasn’t in his usual self either. What the hell was happening? Her warm hand cupped his cheek, stroked it. Her other hand found his. He noticed the wedding band on her ring finger. A wedding band that was fitting the one on his own finger. What did this all mean?

 

“I thought I had lost you,” she cried.

 

He was lost. Even more when she put her ear over his heart and listen to it beating. He remained silent, hoping things would get clearer if he had a better look at them. She intertwined their fingers together. His heart was beating painfully in his chest and she most likely felt it. She stroked his hand with her thumb and shushed him.

 

“When they told us, you had this… heart disease, I wanted to believe they were wrong, that they had misread the results of your last checkup… But when you had that heart attack…” She sniffled. Her teary eyes met his. “They refuse to put you on top of the waiting list. They said your condition could still wait.”

“What condition?”

 

Her hand found his cheek again while her head remained on his chest. She smiled sadly, surely thinking that he was playing dumb to distract her from her sadness, from the idea she had in mind. An idea he wouldn’t like at all.

 

“I wouldn’t be able to live without you.”

“Neither do I.”

 

It could only be a dream. Him and Rose being married? Him being human? He was obviously dreaming. He was drugged or something. This couldn’t real in any alternative reality his mind and decisions had created over the long years of his life. She gave him another smile.

 

“We won’t have to. You and I, we’ll be living together until the end of times. Just… don’t forget me, okay?”

 

If his heart was in a good shape, it would only have sunk in his chest but he was having a severe heart illness and it ended up in him suffocating and his heart breaking. He was having another attack. Even with a good heart, this news would have caused him the same reaction. Rose Tyler was sacrificing herself for him, the broken man, and this was something he just couldn’t accept. He preferred dying a thousand times than accepting this…


	29. SEIZURE

“Jack, you gotta stop it now!”

 

Rose rolled the Doctor’s body on his side and used all her weight to keep him still. The poor man was having a seizure because of the intense activity his brain had been going through in the last few hours.

 

“I’m doing what I can!”

 

They had landed on Kratak in the morning because of an unusual alien activity that had drawn the TARDIS’ attention on the town. The trio had soon found out that the responsible of the Glorious days were all persons whose brains were influenced by this new technology invented by a gamer who wasn’t satisfied with the current virtual realities’ devices. It had worked so well that it had quickly been developed as a weapon.

 

“It’s not enough!”

 

Curious about this new technology, the Doctor had wanted to try one of the oldest versions, the harmless games. Unfortunately, he had been tricked and the sphere he was given was part of the new ones, the ones that were using the date they found in your brain to use them against you. And in the Doctor’s brain, there was more than one threat. The Time Lord had quickly been caught in his worst nightmares and nothing had been able to take him out of there. Rose hated seeing him in such much pain, his hands gripping the bed under him, his face twisted with fear.

 

“Rose, a Time Lord’s brain doesn’t work like ours. They are more evolved than us and have more hemispheres than we do. This thing is untangled in his neuronal and nervous network and I can’t shut it down.”

“You have to find a way or he’s gonna die on us!”

 

Rose was completely panicked. She was afraid of losing the Doctor, of losing her friend, of losing the man she loved. She would never recover from such a loss if it ever happened. So they had to find a solution before any damage was done to the Doctor’s brain.

 

“We don’t have any other choice,” muttered the Captain. “We gotta do it manually.”

 

All the screens were showing alerts and there were beeps coming from them all at once. The TARDIS was detecting multiple failures in the Time Lord’s system. They needed to stop this simulation now or it would be too late.

 

“Hold it tight, Rosie.”

“What are you…”

“Hold him tight.”

 

Rose obeyed and watched in horror as Jack pulled out the brand new dagger he had bought on this planet. Without hesitation, he incised the back of the Time Lord’s neck. He put his fingers in the cut and grabbed the small metallic sphere. The Doctor wasn’t happy with the intrusion and pain it caused him but as soon as the sphere was out of his body, the seizure stopped. He was in a very bad shape but he was alive.

 

“And now?” asked Rose.

 

Jack put the metallic sphere in a jar and washed his hands. He cleaned the cut and put a band-aid on it. Rose was stroking the Doctor’s face reassuringly despite her own fear appearing in her trembling hands and teary eyes. They had been so close to lose him.

 

“Now we stay by his side and make sure he knows this is reality.”

 

Because once the Doctor would be well enough to open his eyes, he wouldn’t know if this was another simulation or the reality. He would very confused and most likely terrified and they were the only ones who could take him out of this vicious circle…


	30. CAREGIVER

The Doctor had never thought he would have needed a caregiver one day. Let alone two caregivers. That was quite exceptional in his book. If he had been told that news one day, he would just have laughed and retorted that Time Lords didn’t need caregivers. Their superior biology was doing all the work. However, Time Lord was just the title of a species and that didn’t save him from some serious complications. Especially if this was touching his so precious brain. It was the worst thing for a Time Lord, having his mind messed with. There were too many information, too many secrets, too many things to discover. It could be dangerous to leave all of this in bad hands. In this matter, the bad hands had been his own hands. He had trapped himself into his mind with a device using his fears and doubts against him. Best idea of the century.

He had woken up to the sound of Rose sniffling from crying too much and Jack fastening a black wristband around his left wrist. He had recognised the device as a sensor to record his vital signs and brain activity. He was in the med bay and was being completely confused about the reason why he was here. He usually never came here unless he needed something for his human companions. So finding himself here with his companions taking care of him was rather surprising. Jack explained the situation to him quickly and the Doctor found himself very dumb for acting this way in a situation that was presenting so many risks for himself and his friends. Nevertheless, what was done couldn’t undone and his mistake had thrown him in this bed unable to know if it was the truth or some other simulation.

For several days, he remained very confused. He was expecting something terrible to happen at any second but there was nothing else but the daily cares given by Rose and Jack. He refused to stay in the med bay. This room was making him uncomfortable. Probably a feeling coming from a past life or something. He preferred being in the console room or wandering around. But Rose and Jack refused to leave him alone at all. If he wanted to take a walk, one of them had to be around so he wouldn’t get lost and have fits of confusion that would make him run away or worse. It had happened once or twice since he had woken up and calming him down, comforting him had been the hardest thing ever. Even Rose, who usually was the best person to bring him back to his senses, had been unable to do something for him.

The truth was that his brain had been too abused in the last hours that he couldn’t tell what was true and what was not. His brilliant mind was stuck in the matrix of this demonic sphere and it was a chance that he had come out of it alive when so many people died. If he was out of, that was. He had helped those poor people, saved them from the mind manipulators and destroyed the devices. But who would save him from himself now if he couldn’t convince himself that it was the reality and not some simulation?

 

“Are you sure you wanna walk around?”

“’m not someone who likes staying still, me.”

“Oh, I do know that.”

 

He slowly got up from the pilot seat he was sitting in. Since he was refusing the med bay, they were keeping him in quiet places, where he was feeling good and reassured. The console room certainly was the best place to keep him relaxed. He took Rose’s hand in his, a reflex but also a way to keep anchored to this reality, and she intertwined their fingers. They walked in the TARDIS’ corridors for a long while before any of them decided to speak.

 

“How could I know this is real?”

“I don’t know. If there’s something that doesn’t feel real?”

“The fact that I really want to kiss you right now?”

 

Rose stopped abruptly. This one, she hadn’t expected it. This wasn’t like the Doctor to say that kind of things. For a second, she thought she was the one hallucinating. Jack would have exulted upon these words but she wasn’t because the Doctor was too confused to know what they meant for her…


	31. SHOWDOWN

“Tell me, Doctor, what have you seen while you were stuck in this simulation?”

 

They had found a quiet room in the TARDIS and sat down for a moment. They had made sure that the door was locked so they wouldn’t be interrupted. It was a sort of therapy and the Doctor didn’t like this but Rose had decided that he needed to talk about it, at least a little, to relieve his tortured mind from part of the weight. So now, he was laying on the ground, his hands folded behind his head, and was staring at the ceiling.

 

“It wasn’t only me,” he admitted. “I was also in your head, and Jack’s. I’ve seen your doubts and fears. I’ve seen myself being cruel.”

“But that was just a creation of the mind. Something made to drive you insane.”

“I could have handled it, if I hadn’t been forced to witness torture on you both.”

 

Rose scooted closer to him and lay down beside him. She would have taken his hand if he wasn’t keeping them tucked under his head. He wasn’t looking at her at all, wasn’t trying to touch her and she hated that. She hated how he was distancing himself from them since he was awake from this terrible simulation.

 

“This technology, it might have used the psychic bond between the three of us to get to me more easily. And once they were in my mind, they used my grip on Time against me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I probably have met my future self.”

“Your future self?”

“That’s a very long story.”

“Not as if we had anything else to do at the moment.”

 

The Doctor sighed. She was stubborn. She wouldn’t leave him alone until he told her the truth so he explained to her that Time Lords had a trick to cheat on death and that he could regenerate and change completely. It was a scary painful dodgy process. You were certain to die before you felt reborn from your ashes. But it was offering them a very long lifespan and the ability of being different people all along these years. Since he had started talking, he told her most of what had happened in the simulation. Even the one where they were humans and married and he was dying.

 

“There’s also been this showdown between Jack and I.”

“A showdown?”

“We had to fight each other to death.”

“What was the prize?”

“You.”

“You mean, they made you fighting… for me?”

“The winner was getting the right to date you.”

“You don’t have to fight to get me, Doctor.”

“Hm?”

“I already belong with you.”

 

The Doctor was sure to be dreaming now because Rose Tyler would never have confessed having feelings for him in the real life. She would never have straddled him, gripped his jumper and pressed her lips against his either. She would never be so zealous, not the Rose he knew. But the words she said – _‘I’ve been so afraid of losing you and I never want you gone without knowing how much I love you’_ – felt very real though. As well as his fingers getting tangled in her hair, his tongue licking her lips, his teeth nipping at the bottom one for her to open her mouth. If this was another dream, well, he would gladly be stuck in it as long as Rose Tyler kept kissing him.


End file.
